Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Regulating In Uncertainty: Animating The Public Health Product Safety Net To Capture Consumer Products Regulated By The Fda That Use Innovative Technologies, Including Nanotechnologies, Genetic Modification, Cloning, And Lab Grown Meat, Katharine A. Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

This Article will use nanotechnology as an example that highlights how regulation based on novelty rather than hazard achieves the proper balance between protecting public health while encouraging innovation through the animation of the public health product safety net. In Part II, this Article starts by explaining what nanotechnology is and the remarkable growth of its use in everyday consumer products. It then summarizes the steadily increasing number of studies that suggest that there are likely to be serious health risks associated with the use of nanotech consumer products. Next, it explains how the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] is …

La Responsabilisation De L'Economie: What The United States Can Learn From The New French Law On Consumer Overindebtedness, Jason J. Kilborn

Jason Kilborn

This Article on the French law continues a study of European consumer debt-relief systems, which the author began previously in an article on the German system. With rapid legal and practical developments in consumer debt-relief law, Europe provides an excellent comparative legal laboratory for observing the potential benefits and pitfalls of consumer bankruptcy reforms. In particular, French and German experiences with long-term payment plans shed useful light on the great debate raging in the United States over similar plans.

Preventing Preemption: Finding Freedom For States To Protect Their Citizens’ Personal History Information, Elizabeth De Armond

Elizabeth De Armond

203 N. Lasalle Five Years Later: Answers To The Open Questions, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 61 (2004), Paul B. Lewis

Paul Lewis

No abstract provided.

Information To Consumers On The Absence Or Reduced Presence Of Gluten In Food: Commission Implementing Regulation (Eu) No 828/2014 / July 17, 2015, Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

On 30 July 2014, the European Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014 of 30 July 2014 on the requirements for the provision of information to consumers on the absence or reduced presence of gluten in food.

In this article, renowned food lawyer Mr. Luis González Vaqué seeks to analyse what is new in this Community legislation. To do so he first look briefly at Commission Regulation (EC) No 41/2009 of 20 January 2009 concerning the composition and labelling of foodstuffs suitable for people intolerant to gluten, especially because Implementing Regulation No. 828/2014 will only enter into force on …

Does Fraud Pay? An Empirical Analysis Of Attorney's Fees Provisions In Consumer Fraud Statutes, 56 Clev. St. L. Rev. 483 (2008), Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin

Debra Pogrund Stark

No abstract provided.

Testimony To The Committee On Financial Institutions, Kansas House Of Representatives March 13, 2014, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

This document contains the text of testimony given before the Committee on Financial Institutions, Kansas House of Representatives March 13, 2014, in a hearing to address potential changes to the regulation of payday lending in Kansas.

Sea Changes In Consumer Financial Protection: Stronger Agency And Stronger Laws, Dee Pridgen

Dee Pridgen

This article tracks the rising influence of behavioral economics as a guiding force in consumer protection. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, formed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, is a new and stronger agency for consumers. Two pieces of legislation, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act (Title XIV of Dodd-Frank), and the Credit Card Accountability , Responsibility and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act) of 2009, are stronger laws ensuring the safety of consumer financial products. This article examines the new agency and the new laws, explains how they differ from the prior governmental …

“La Nueva Regulación Del Etiquetado De Los Alimentos En La Ue: ¿Estamos Preparados Para El Día 'D', El 13 De Diciembre De 2014?”, Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

El Reglamento (UE) n° 1169/2011 del Parlamento Europeo y el Consejo modifica las disposiciones actualmente aplicables en la Unión, a fin asegurar que los consumidores pueden decidir bien orientados a la hora de elegir los productos alimenticios que consumen y que tal utilización sea segura, a la vez que se garantiza la libre circulación de los alimentos legalmente producidos y comercializados. Dicho Reglamento entró en vigor el 12 de diciembre de 2011 y se aplicará a más tardar el 13 de diciembre de 2014. Siguiendo una práctica ya habitual, la DG SANCO ha publicado un documento (“Questions and Answers on …

Federal Preemption And Consumer Financial Protection: Past And Future

Patricia A. McCoy

Starting in 1995 and throughout the subprime boom during the next decade, Congress failed to take action to curb predatory mortgage lending. Many states and cities filled the void by passing anti-predatory lending laws of their own. Lenders, worried about potential liability, quickly organized a full-scale attack on the state and local initiatives. Their most potent strategy lay in challenging the laws and ordinances under federal preemption rules for national banks and federal savings associations that precluded states from enforcing their anti-predatory lending laws.

The Dodd-Frank Act curtailed the preemption rules by establishing that state consumer financial laws can only …

“El Reglamento (Ue) N.º 181/2011 Sobre Los Derechos De Los Viajeros De Autobuses Y Autocares”, Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

No abstract provided.

On Equality: The Anti-Interference Principle, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Essay introduces the “Anti-Interference Principle” – a new term on the meaning of equality, or at least one not yet so-named in the equality lexicon – as a necessary foundation for achieving the goal of true equality. Equality has a long-standing place in the discussion of politics and jurisprudence and remains a struggle of definition today. Rather than rehash the mass of scholarship, this Essay seeks to summarize the general equality concept, and propose that the legal discourse on equality center on a requirement that governmental power must protect and respect equal treatment and opportunity, unconstrained, not equal outcomes. …

Making Debtor Remedies More Effective, Melissa B. Jacoby

Melissa B. Jacoby

Commissioned for a conference on credit markets at Harvard Business School in February 2010, this paper explores functional system design and the role of lawyers and intermediaries in providing debtor remedies in a complex legal system. The thesis of this paper, which proceeds in the “law and society” tradition, is that the location of a remedial right within the debtor-creditor system substantially affects the costs and benefits of the remedy for debtors, creditors, the system, and society. In other words, merely adding specific substantive provisions does not directly translate into actual protection. Relatedly, policymakers must recognize that lawyers and other …

Rethinking Disclosure In A World Of Risk-Based Pricing

Patricia A. McCoy

The residential mortgage market in the United States has changed significantly since the passage of current federal mortgage disclosure laws in the 1960s and 1970s. In this Article, Professor Patricia McCoy advocates for the reform of these traditional disclosure rules. After describing the evolution of the subprime mortgage market and providing a description of current federal disclosure laws, she explores how these new market dynamics cause the traditional disclosure rules to break down in the subprime market. Professor McCoy concludes with proposals to counteract false advertising practices, facilitate "meaningful comparison-shopping, and formulate streamlined disclosures addressing loan applicants' greatest concerns in …